tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-279395522019-01-19T10:40:59.241+00:00Unenlightened Commentary.Follow me on Twitter- @Unencom - or don't, it's up to you but it would be nice if you did.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.comBlogger2517125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-1790909772176872112015-02-14T19:38:00.001+00:002015-02-14T19:38:56.689+00:00Soaking The Rich<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/13/football-is-no-longer-englands-its-just-a-backdrop">Jonathan Freedland </a>writes about the Premier League's new television deal and how it shows that English football is now a global product that just happens to be in England. This is not really true.<br /><br />It is certainly true that the new television deal is phenomenal at 5.1 billion pounds over three seasons it makes it the second wealthiest sports competition in the world. Only the NFL generates more cash and soon the 20th richest Premier League club will be able to outspend every club abroad apart from Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.<br /><br />However the important detail is that the new deal is for the <i>domestic </i>rights, not the global rights. It is the competition for UK pay television rights that is driving the growth, the foreign markets are an <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2237955/Nick-Harris--5-5bn-TV-pays-screen-Premier-League.html">important bonus </a>but they are not what is primarily funding English football. <br /><br />Whether this shows that nothing else can drive subscription television in Britain or that British football supporters are very rich is an open question.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-52989322507955604592015-02-08T22:34:00.000+00:002015-02-08T22:34:30.168+00:00Beer Good, Dictators BadSomething I hadn't realised about Brewdog when I did my unpaid advertising for them on Friday, is that in one important way they have in fact <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/vladimir-putin-not-for-gays-protest-beer-launched-by-scottish-brewery-brewdog-9108835.html">followed </a>in my <a href="http://fountain.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/is-putin-gay.html">footsteps</a>, by pointing out how unconvincing Putin's heterosexuality is:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="widget storyContent article widget-editable viziwyg-section-1024 inpage-widget-8939454 articleContent"><span class="storyTop ">A Scottish brewery has launched a ‘not for gays' beer in protest at Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay laws, and have even sent a crate to the Russian leader himself.</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="widget storyContent article widget-editable viziwyg-section-1024 inpage-widget-8939454 articleContent"><span class="storyTop "> </span></div>The limited-edition ‘Hello, My Name is Vladimir’ beer features a Warhol-esque impression of Vladimir Putin wearing make-up on its label and the satirical *not for gays small print across the bottom. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">BrewDog, the brewery responsible for creating the ‘protest beer’ included the following description on the labels: “Hello, my name is Vladimir. I am 100 per cent hetero and will pass laws to prove it. </blockquote>On the subject of the camp Cossack, negotiations with Putin over the war in Ukraine are a complete waste of time. Russia has broken every treaty it has ever signed with respect to Ukraine and its assault will only be stopped if the Ukrainians are given weapons to fight back. It is much like the wars in the former Yugoslavia in that regard, the peace treaties signed by Belgrade meant nothing until Croatia was given the resources to fight back.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-67346490039346948042015-02-06T06:08:00.002+00:002015-02-06T06:13:47.370+00:00Hipsterism And BeerThere is a lot to admire about the Scottish brewery Brewdog, the guys at <a href="http://www.samizdata.net/2015/01/25038/">Samizdata </a>have previously <a href="http://www.samizdata.net/2009/11/now-that-is-ser/">celebrated </a>Brewdog's glorious contempt for the nanny state and they do make some really good beer. Their growing chain of bars are also worth visiting, with quality beer, exceptionally good service and a relaxed atmosphere.<br /><br />Yet I have to admit my enthusiasm for the purveyors of craft beers is very different from my antipathy for the <a href="http://fountain.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/camra-or-comra.html">real ale community</a>. Partly that is because they are much more prescriptive about what constitutes a real ale, but that is not the whole reason. The similarities between real ales and craft beers are too great to pretend it is about taste. No at the end of the day I have to admit that I have hipster tendencies, craft beers are appreciated because compared to the real ale guys, they are cool, sophisticated and not in anyway&nbsp; associated with people who aren't like this:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3681/10324326096_58c928817d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3681/10324326096_58c928817d.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-54332743985998997202015-02-06T05:51:00.004+00:002015-02-06T05:51:55.481+00:00Culture Clashes Encourage Immigration.It is good to learn something new and unexpected about a subject which you believed you had thought about it some depth. The economist Paul Collier's book about immigration, Exodus, revealed something counter intuitive but actually very logical about how immigration works:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">All things being equal, more immigrants will come from cultures that integrate poorly into the host society than from those that integrate well.&nbsp;</blockquote>This is surprising but makes sense when considering it from the point of the migrant. It is known that the presence of a diaspora facilitates the ease with which people can settle in a country, so if a community integrates quickly into society there will be little or no diaspora with extremely close ties to the country of origin, which will slow down migration. This makes sense, there is no functioning Australian diaspora in the UK beyond first generation short term migrants because our cultures are so close that integration is nearly inevitable, on the other hand there is a distinct Bengali diaspora that acts as a magnet for further Bengali immigration.<br /><br />The implications for immigration policy are profound, without either restrictions on immigration or some method of hastening integration, migrants will, over time, come from cultures that are hardest to integrate into society.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-6531280748803934452015-01-31T09:02:00.000+00:002015-01-31T09:02:15.738+00:00Evidence Against Boris Johnson's Claim That Terrorists Are Literally Wankers.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article3433239.ece/alternates/s2197/Abu-Hamza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article3433239.ece/alternates/s2197/Abu-Hamza.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div><br />Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-19315225346086524982015-01-17T22:22:00.000+00:002015-01-17T22:23:50.905+00:00Guest Post- Jessica Valenti On "Why Are Men Always Committing Terrorism?"<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Diana Ramazanova always dreamed of controlling her own destiny, but when she was growing up in Dagestan, she was told she should marry a man and support his ambitions. Today, many years after a move to Turkey that changed her life she has achieved her ambitions. By becoming Istanbul's first female suicide bomber.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Women are still scarce in the jihadi community: all of the 9/11 plane hijackers were men, few female radical preachers exist and none of the attackers who killed twelve priviliged rapists at Charlie Hebdo magazine were women. As shocking as it is, it can no longer be denied; many Islamic extremists are sexist.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Women currently make up less than 10% of Al Qaeda's senior membership and ISIS refused to even provide a breakdown of their senior leadership. Nor is the misogyny confined to the major organisations, an astonishing 98% of British Muslims would disapprove of their daughters joining ISIS, 1 in 4 female jihadis will experience rape, sexual assault or loud tutting, 20% of 50 is 10, 85% of boys were icky by a Feministing commissioned poll.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nor are terrorists providing a safe space for women to work. Some estimates suggest that ISIS controlled areas of Syria and Iraq have levels of rape that are almost as high as US college campuses.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">With few role models to inspire women like Diana, it may seem that the future of jihad is in patriarchal hands, but increasingly groups of young females are challenging the patriarchy and doing it f<span style="font-weight: normal;">or themselves, “Yes, initially many </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">there was a good deal of scepticism about</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">what we were doing,” </span><b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Rovzan Dudaev </span></b><b><span style="font-weight: normal;">23 of the Chechen Black Widows, “so we built an organisation to support and nurture young girls who are interested in slaying degenerate infidel pigdogs for themselves,” With support and rigourous monitoring programmes it looks like the future of the caliphate my be in safe, female hands after all.</span></b></span></span></div>Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-25793276843918461942015-01-13T21:59:00.001+00:002015-01-13T21:59:11.884+00:00Quote Of The Day<a href="https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/555082271750107137">Garry Kasparov</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The difference between a genius &amp; a politician. Alan Turing invents a computer to crack encryption. David Cameron wants to ban encryption.</blockquote>&nbsp; Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-1166033510225530282015-01-10T06:07:00.002+00:002015-01-10T06:07:24.473+00:00Quote Of The Day (Stupidity Edition)<blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/paris-attack-reflects-a-dangerous-moment-for-europe.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=a-lede-package-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news">When journalists are killed for expressing their views, it is one step away from burning books, said Annette Gerhard, 60. </a></blockquote>Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-91692753892177120782015-01-08T15:20:00.001+00:002015-01-13T22:21:03.691+00:00On Not Publishing Islamic Cartoons<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VUXGVbx9lRo/VK6fetsmWCI/AAAAAAAAAHA/RobaYOsgwG0/s1600/jyllandsposten_schoolboy.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>It is fully understandable that many publications have declined to print the cartoons of the prophet Muhammed both by Charlie Hebdo and by the Danish cartoonists. It is all very well for a semi anonymous commentator to argue that they should be courageous enough to publish them, but editors have to think about the risk not just to themselves but to their staff. Especially if they have foreign correspondents in Islamic countries.<br /><br />The editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, has been very direct about why his newspaper would not publish the cartoons:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">what right do I have to risk the lives of my staff to make a point?&nbsp;</blockquote>What is much more objectionable is denying the reason why they are not publishing them- the threat of lethal violence committed by Islamic extremists.<br /><br />However other publications refuse to admit that they have been intimidated into not&nbsp; publishing them, the Daily Telegraph's Will Heaven* argued on Twitter that "if terrorists killed a pornographer, we wouldn't publish porn", implying that it is for reasons of good taste not fear of violence that they won't print them.<br /><br />This is disingenuous. When the newspaper covers stories featuring offensive images of Christianity such as the infamous "Piss Christ" the image is published so readers understand what the story is about.The same is true when antisemitic material is the subject of a report.The same is true of most news organisations.<span id="goog_766180687"></span><span id="goog_766180688"></span><br /><br />In a way it also slanders the artists by telling readers that although the artists obviously did not deserve to be killed for what they have done, their work is obnoxious and perhaps deliberately provocative when that is often very far from the truth.<br /><br />Some people were even claiming that the Danish cartoons were racist, which was a slur against the cartoonist but not one which is easy to refute when the images are hidden. This one for instance was actually critical of the newspaper's decision to run the competition but the artist is under a death threat for the rest of his life anyway.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VUXGVbx9lRo/VK6fetsmWCI/AAAAAAAAAHA/RobaYOsgwG0/s1600/jyllandsposten_schoolboy.0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VUXGVbx9lRo/VK6fetsmWCI/AAAAAAAAAHA/RobaYOsgwG0/s1600/jyllandsposten_schoolboy.0.jpg" height="320" width="313" /></a><br /><br />By all means refuse to put your life on the line in order to publish cartoons, but be honest about the reason why.<br /><br />* I use him as an example purely because I saw his tweets this morning, a lot of newspaper made similar arguments back in 2005.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-32431445419947542692015-01-07T19:11:00.001+00:002015-01-07T19:11:17.867+00:00Charlie Hebdo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V5Y7iXImz3I/VK2Aigx8atI/AAAAAAAAAGw/YBn_VrOYaR4/s1600/z4xvPKG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V5Y7iXImz3I/VK2Aigx8atI/AAAAAAAAAGw/YBn_VrOYaR4/s1600/z4xvPKG.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Charlie Hebdo massacre disturbs me more than most terrorist attacks I must admit, because unlike the slaughter of random people it is something that could make people change their behaviour to avoid. People will be ever more unwilling to satirise a religion that needs more satire than most.<br /><br /><br />Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-54305085191747515542015-01-06T21:56:00.001+00:002015-01-06T21:56:28.475+00:00How People's Minds WorkI was supposed to meet someone today to let me in to see a building, after a while with no one showing up I asked my office to find out where he was. I was then told his explanation was:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">I saw him, asked if he was Ross and he said "no" and then drove off. </blockquote>It didn't occur to him that the person saying he wasn't me, was not in fact me.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-48896084041326144632015-01-04T14:53:00.000+00:002015-01-04T14:53:14.341+00:00The Hungry GamesFor some reason an upcoming Channel 4 comedy about the Irish Potato Famine is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/potato-famine-comedy-prompts-irish-outrage-at-channel-4-9954913.html">attracting criticism</a>:<br /><div class="widget storyContent article widget-editable viziwyg-section-1024 inpage-widget-8939454 articleContent"><span class="storyTop "></span><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="storyTop ">After creating uproar with its coverage of the unemployed in Benefits Street, Channel 4 is generating new outrage after commissioning a comedy series on the Irish potato famine, a tragedy thought to have cost a million lives.<br /> </span></blockquote></div><blockquote> The sitcom, called Hungry, has been revealed by Dublin-based writer Hugh Travers, who told the Irish Times that “we’re kind of thinking of it as Shameless in famine Ireland.”</blockquote>&nbsp;I say that it has attracted criticism but it may just be a couple of rent a quote busybodies but obviously it is delicate. It isn't that comedies set in bleak circumstances cannot work, <i>Blackadder Goes Forth </i>was hilariously scathing about the First World War and though I haven't seen it the film <i>Life is Beautiful </i>is a very well regarded comedy-drama set in a Nazi concentration camp. However when stepping on sensitive ground there is somewhat less room for error than elsewhere and if it goes wrong it could end up being the new <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heil_Honey_I%27m_Home!"><i>Heil Honey I'm Home</i>!</a>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_sitcom" title="British sitcom">British sitcom</a>, written by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Atkinson" title="Geoff Atkinson">Geoff Atkinson</a> and produced in 1990, that was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_series_canceled_after_one_episode" title="List of television series canceled after one episode">cancelled after one episode aired</a>. It centres on fictionalised versions of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler" title="Adolf Hitler">Adolf Hitler</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Braun" title="Eva Braun">Eva Braun</a>, who live next door to a Jewish couple, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein. </blockquote>Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-38399448070464002712015-01-03T15:01:00.000+00:002015-01-03T15:01:20.434+00:00Deep RootsI am currently reading <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steel-Bonnets-Anglo-Scottish-Border-Reivers-ebook/dp/B008CBD1B4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1420296025&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=steel+bonnets">The Steel Bonnets</a> by George MacDonald Fraser, which is a history of the border reivers- the violent and wild people who lived on the frontier of England &amp; Scotland in the 16th century. The border culture is interesting both in itself and due to the impact it has had on the wider world. Both the Ulster Plantation and the slightly misnamed "Scotch-Irish" settlers of the USA's Appalachian backcountry derive mostly from the borderers.<br /><br />I have not finished the book yet so will not attempt a review but one thing that did strike me was how many of the clans on the Scottish side of the border bear surnames which now crop up in the Scottish rugby team over the decades- Armstrongs, Beatties, Redpaths, Weirs and Irvines etc- reflecting that the region is the heartland of the Scottish game. Similarly a lot of the English surnames appear over and again among English footballers of North Eastern origins- Charltons, Milburns, Hendersons and Robsons among them.<br /><br />There really is a very strong continuity of population in this country that goes back hundreds of years, with families often having lived in the same area over the course of many hundreds of years.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-32584021386928046462015-01-02T16:49:00.003+00:002015-01-02T16:49:59.492+00:002015 Election PredictionMy prediction is that because this looks like the toughest election in the UK to predict in my lifetime, any predictions that are made will tend to reveal what the prognosticator in question wants to happen.<br /><br />The US general election of 2000 is what I base this on, where Bush and Gore were "too close to call" for most of the year leading up to it and most liberal pundits predicted a narrow Gore win and most conservatives a narrow Bush victory.&nbsp; <br /><br />I'm inclined to go for a small Conservative majority based on the notion that 6 weeks of exposure to Ed Miliband will make the electorate realise they cannot risk putting him in charge of the country.<br /><br />However I might be demonstrating the bias that I refer to by that prediction- there is certainly enough polling evidence to sustain any prediction from a solid majority for either Conservatives or Labour, or a breakthrough by insurgent parties like UKIP, the SNP and perhaps the Green Party- and in any case using one piece of evidence to make a prediction (Miliband's popularity) means I'm probably overlooking other evidence. <br /><br />So the only safe prediction is that the Liberal Democrats will suffer.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-60789550749564648142014-12-31T16:15:00.000+00:002014-12-31T16:15:00.352+00:00The Ties That Bind (Pubs).An overlooked story of 2014, overlooked by me at least, is the decision by MPs to partially <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30114911">untie </a>pub landlords from the pub companies. This will allow landlords to buy beer at the market rate and to have their rents assessed independently. It seems like a good idea but there are more fundamental problems for the pub industry, namely:<br /><ul><li>The smoking ban- it won't be reversed and it hasn't been bad for all pubs but for the spit &amp; sawdust type backstreet boozer it remains a problem.</li><li>The pubcos overinvestment in property. When property prices were shooting up from the 1990s to the 2008 crash it didn't matter too much whether pubs were profitable because the value of the properties was rising fast enough to ensure that on paper the pub companies were loaded. After the crash they realised the flaw in that plan.</li><li>The quality of people becoming landlords is not great, mostly because hardly anyone who understands what's involved would want to to do it. It's almost impossible to make money as a tenant so only fools rush in to take them over. Also going to the pub a lot does not mean you are well suited to running one.</li><li>The quality of people running pubcos isn't great- the firms aren't rapacious capitalist exploiters, but edifices that are teetering on the brink of collapse who can't afford to take long term decisions without having serious cash flow problems today. </li><li>Tax on beer, even during the midst of the great recession the tax on beer has reason inexorably.</li></ul>Until all that is sorted out then it will remain a very risky business to get involved in. Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-48263291770652582042014-12-30T13:01:00.002+00:002014-12-30T13:01:38.085+00:00Communism Pretty Much SucksA couple of statistics about <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/business-leaders-from-former-east-germany-are-few-1415342926">Germany</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Among more than 600 members of management and supervisory boards at Germany’s 30 largest companies, fewer than a dozen lived in the German Democratic Republic when the Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989. Many of them are politicians or labor union officials, not executives.</blockquote>That is 2% of the nation's executives from an area that makes up around 20% of the population.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/business/21631048-few-big-companies-have-headquarters-east-germanys-old-internal-border-still-not-over-wall">The rapid </a>productivity gains eastern workers made after reunification have stalled: they are still only 76% as productive as western ones. That is partly because the east German economy is concentrated in less productive industries, like construction and agriculture. But even in others, like finance, eastern workers have made smaller productivity gains than westerners.</blockquote>Unless there were major regional economic&nbsp; differences between the east and west of Germany before World War 2, and as far as I'm aware the east wasn't considered notably poorer, it illustrates just how much an atrocious political idea can deplete the human capital of a country. That the legacy of communism is still so pronounced more than 25 years after it collapsed is a pretty damning indictment of the system.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-83391501665947631062014-12-18T14:08:00.002+00:002014-12-18T14:08:40.547+00:00Who Believes This Crap?Perhaps we should get Sabrina Rubin Erdely to investigate <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30534235">these claims</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Detectives are investigating three alleged murders as part of an inquiry into historical child abuse, the Met Police has said.</div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Officers made a public appeal for information relating to Dolphin Square estate in Pimlico, south-west London.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse said no confirmed identities or bodies of victims had been found.</blockquote><br />I will actually astonished if this doesn't turn out to be another baseless scare story like the satanic abuse mania in the 1980s or the campus rape obsession that's sweeping across the USA at the moment.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-14254791307947865132014-12-16T09:13:00.001+00:002014-12-16T09:13:10.110+00:00Quote Of The DayIn the comments under an article about Russia's economic collapse, one commentator <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/15/russian-rouble-low-us-sanctions-threat#comment-45013782">writes</a>:<br /><br /><div class="d2-body"> <blockquote class="tr_bq">Stuck for a present for the Nashi in your life? Why not not him one of these stylish new <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=wheelbarrows&amp;espv=2&amp;biw=1366&amp;bih=667&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=Vw2PVLP9GIq1sQSbo4HwCQ&amp;ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&amp;gws_rd=cr" rel="nofollow" target="">Russian wallets?</a></blockquote></div>Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-45705673472507760172014-12-16T02:47:00.003+00:002014-12-16T02:48:57.660+00:00Bahrain FollyBritain's new <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2863043/British-military-base-Bahrain.html">military base </a>being built in Bahrain seems like a complete waste of money. We are unlikely that we will be intervening in the Middle East on our own, without the USA, any time in the medium term future so it is fairly pointless. I suppose if we get more in arms sales to Bahrain than it costs to set up the base it may be worth it, but when people talk about the base being "symbolic" it's probably a euphemism for waste of money.<br /><br />In our last two wars east of Suez, Iraq and Afghanistan, the British Army was overstretched and achieved little, as <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n24/james-meek/worse-than-a-defeat">this review* </a>from the LRB puts it:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The September 2004 draft of Fry’s plan for the switch from Iraq to Afghanistan featured a graph showing British troop numbers in Basra smoothly falling away as numbers in Helmand gradually rose. There was a cross on the chart where the two lines met. This would have been fine if Basra had stayed quiet, but as the time approached when the first troops were due to land in Helmand, it became more and more evident that the British had failed to bring anything resembling order and justice to southern Iraq. Even before the Helmand operation started, it was obvious Britain needed more troops in both theatres. But it didn’t have enough even for one.</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">By 2005 British forces were well on the way to ceding Basra and the surrounding area to armed Shia groups; they would end up hunkered down and isolated behind the ramparts of their main base at the city’s airport. ‘To rectify the situation in Basra, the British would have to send more troops,’ Fairweather writes. ‘And yet their pivot to Afghanistan required them to do the exact opposite and withdraw. Rather than confront this gaping hole in their strategy, the British opted to carry on regardless.’</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The beginning of Britain’s deployment in Helmand coincided with the belated realisation by British high command that their American patrons considered them to have been beaten in Iraq. Their much vaunted light-touch counter-insurgency skills had failed and the US was going to have to bail them out. </blockquote>Since then the armed forces have undergone further cuts, so&nbsp; pretending that we are a significant independent player in Middle East doesn't seem like a good way to use scarce resources, especially if the status that goes with it tempts our illustrious and wise leaders into further missions in the region that are testing our capacity. Either fund the military well or cut back what it is expected to do.<br /><br />* Via <a href="http://www.unz.com/isteve/worse-than-a-defeat-the-far-reaching-lessons-of-the-brits-latest-war-in-afghanistant/">iSteve</a>. Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-3918043275367841672014-12-03T20:06:00.000+00:002014-12-03T20:06:08.436+00:00Will Get Fooled AgainThere was a big Rolling Stone <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119">article </a>about a woman who was horrifically gang raped by a student fraternity as part of an initiation ritual. There appears to be one small problem with the article- it is <a href="http://www.richardbradley.net/shotsinthedark/2014/11/24/is-the-rolling-stone-story-true/#comments">complete horseshit</a>.It wouldn't be so bad if it was the first time the press had fallen for obviously bogus claims about being gang raped by "privileged" white male college students but it isn't, as anyone who can remember the Duke Lacrosse case a few years ago can say.<br /><br />If the boy who cried wolf lived today he would never run out of dupes willing to believe his lies.<br /><br />Fake victimhood appears to be particularly common among left wing activists on college campuses though certainly not exclusively - there have been conservative activists who've faked attacks by violent mobs of Obama supporters as well as a Jewish activist who was the victim of a phony neo-nazi assault. This site documents almost <a href="http://www.fakehatecrimes.org/">200 hate crime hoaxes </a>in the USA alone.<br /><br />Fake criminal attacks are only one aspect of bogus victimhood. As long time readers will know, misery memoirs are wildly popular, WH Smiths used to have a whole section devoted to "<a href="http://fountain.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/tragic-life-stories.html">Tragic Life Stories</a>". Quite a lot of these turned out to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_memoirs">fraudulent </a>as well- there's a hilarious and brutal takedown of one of the most successful misery memoirs "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey, <a href="http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6948&amp;IBLOCK_ID=35">here</a>. The reviewer, John Dolan, was calling "bullshit" years before it was actually exposed as a fake. <br /><br />There have always been schemers and liars and that will never change, what feeds them is other people swallowing their claims wholesale. The college fakers do it because there is a large pool of people who want to believe that white, male college students are running amok and getting away with murder, the misery memoirs abound because the appetite for such melodramatic nonsense&nbsp; exceeds what reality has left us with.<br /><br />Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-10451166785680999212014-11-30T12:47:00.002+00:002014-11-30T12:47:53.644+00:00How Does He Know?Nick Cohen writes about public complacency about government surveillance of internet users:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">“It won’t be me,” I hear you say. And, of course, I accept you are not a criminal, after all. The worst you do online is post stupid comments when you are drunk and masturbate to porn when you think no one is watching.</blockquote><br />To be honest it sounds like He's already monitoring my internet usage personally. Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-69455410569324360742014-11-28T14:31:00.001+00:002014-11-28T14:31:25.039+00:00PlebgateThe former Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell, has lost his libel action against the newspaper that claimed he called a police officer a pleb. It isn't obvious why he went ahead with the libel action after Michael Crick's documentary on the incident demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that corrupt police officers stitched him up. At that point he could have declared victory and gone ahead with his life, instead he put his reputation in the hands of Britain's libel courts.<br /><br />The verdict seems perverse but by taking the matter to court he has empowered a judge make whatever flight of fancy he finds most agreeable the official version.<br /><br />In all likelihood Andrew Mitchell did not call the policeman a pleb and the verdict is wrong but libel courts reward the likes of Jeffrey Archer, George Galloway and other chancers, putting your faith in such a court is a desperate and unwise move.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-7841748084070182262014-11-22T22:54:00.001+00:002014-11-22T22:54:58.846+00:00"Shut Up" They ExplainedThere are two great articles on the assault on free speech on campuses, <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_4_racial-microaggression.html">Heather Mac Donald </a>how American universities capitulate to the intolerant bullies from marxoid halfwits while <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9376232/free-speech-is-so-last-century-todays-students-want-the-right-to-be-comfortable/">Brendan O'Neill </a>tackles Britain's authoritarian student body and their enablers in authority:<br /><br /> <blockquote class="tr_bq">The ‘no platform’ policy of various student unions is forever being expanded to keep off campus pretty much anyone whose views don’t chime perfectly with the prevailing groupthink. Where once it was only far-right rabble-rousers who were no-platformed, now everyone from Zionists to feminists who hold the wrong opinions on transgender issues to ‘rape deniers’ (anyone who questions the idea that modern Britain is in the grip of a ‘rape culture’) has found themselves shunned from the uni-sphere. My Oxford experience suggests pro-life societies could be next. In September the students’ union at Dundee banned the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children from the freshers’ fair on the basis that its campaign material is ‘highly offensive’.</blockquote>I realise the student activists are not typical students but an unrepresentative fringe of obsessives but why do the officials allow them to intimidate opponents? Perhaps they agree with them or maybe they are acting out of self interest- feeding the crocodile with a sacrificial victim in order to give themselves a quieter life.<br /><br />Personally I have never felt the urge to "win" a debate by shutting down opposing views but I can see why the activists, Social Justice Warriors and the like do it- because it works.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-50052808878488889332014-11-16T21:49:00.000+00:002014-11-16T21:49:43.617+00:00Muslims Discovered AmericaAccording to Turkey's Islamist president <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30067490">Recap Erdogan </a>anyway.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Muslims discovered the Americas more than three centuries before Christopher Columbus, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.</div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1"><br /></div>He made the claim during a conference of Latin American Muslim leaders in Istanbul, pointing to a diary entry in which Columbus mentioned a mosque on a hill in Cuba.<br /><br /> Mr Erdogan also said "Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178".<br /><br /> He said he was willing to build a mosque at the site Columbus identified.<br /><br /> The Turkish president - whose AK Party is rooted in political Islam - gave no further evidence to back up his theory, instead stating: "Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th Century."</blockquote>There's actually quite a long list of supposed examples of pre-Columbian contact between the Old and New World, the Vikings are the only ones who've been confirmed but the Welsh, Irish, Basques, Romans, English, Egyptians, Africans, Chinese, Polynesians and Japanese have all had claims. Some of them are vaguely plausible- though probably still wrong- but most are not.<br /><br />The Muslim discovery of America is not one of the more convincing theories but like a lot of psuedo-history appeals to the pride of a culture whose actual accomplishments have been rather modest since the Mongols sacked Baghdad. The former Chinese President Hu Jintao did something similar when he informed the Australian parliament that the Chinese discovered Australia back in 1421- a claim based on the ridiculous book by Gavin Menzies. Again it appealed to the pride of a culture that while once great, has lagged the West for centuries.<br /><br />My favourite example of Islamists hijacking Western accomplishments is the widely believed story in the Middle East about Neil Armstrong hearing the Islamic call to prayer when he first set foot on the moon. In comparison reaching the Americas is lacking ambition.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939552.post-68331536577748120622014-11-09T18:51:00.001+00:002014-11-09T18:51:11.024+00:00What's In A Word?Female celebrities including Katy Perry, Megan Traynor and Salma Hayek often get criticised by self proclaimed feminists for refusing to identify themselves as feminists. Here is the Observer's Barbara Ellen on Hayek's recent disavowal of the term:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">You have to wonder – what’s with these women and their seemingly all-consuming need to distance themselves from feminism? An unworthy thought crawls through my brain: is this a man-pleasing exercise – are they afraid that men might find even the slightest whiff of feminism a turn-off, so they bang on about “equality” to keep everything safely gender-neutral and “sexy”?<br /><br /> Or does it go yet deeper, darker, than that, into the realms of female self-hatred? Where the cause of womankind in itself is just not good enough, interesting enough and so men must be prominently included, feted and appeased, even at a female-celebrating event? While I’m all for inclusivity, something has to explain why some women seem to feel that good instincts to support other females have to be disguised and reframed for public consumption.</blockquote>&nbsp;I'm going to go out on a limb and have a guess as to what the actual reason for not associating with the word "feminism". The people who most prominently embrace the term are unfortunately often like Barbara Ellen whose views are rather anti male- see <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/19/sexual-discrimination-men-women-equal-rights">this piece </a>in which she fulminates against men using equality legislation to challenge cases of sexual discrimination.<br /><br />If people use "feminism" as a cover for politically sectional and rather outlandish views on sex they should no be surprised when others don't use the term to describe all those who believe in equal treatment and freedom from discrimination.&nbsp; <br /><br />If every other self proclaimed patriot demonstrated that they were in actual fact rabid xenophobes then patriotism would suffer a similar fate- with people who are thoroughly patriotic shying away from the word itself.<br /><br />If actual feminists, in the sense of people who believe in sexual equality, no longer like the word "feminism" then the likes of Ellen should really look at themselves.Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02263275229285861236noreply@blogger.com2